Im a bit confused ! How do you setup this? Occidental need indigo, spice, copper ore from southern islands
Oriental need dates, indigo, silk, clay,coffee, roses
So how do you just settle two islands for all these and reach Metropolis?

Some guide would be much much appreciated, Thanks

This message has been edited. Last edited by: slpc04,

I've been looking at this one myself. The only way i can see to pull it off is to build a ton of warehouses and then buy all the items you can't produce on your two islands from the npc's. If you have a big enough stock pile to start with you may be able to jump up to the metropolis level before your stock start to run down so far that you have no choice but to colonize another island.

I can't remember off the top of my head- do you have to reach metropolis level with both islands to complete the achievement, or just one of them? If it's only one then I can think of several ways to pull it off, but it would still be a time consuming process and would require a lot of stockpiling.

go for envoys


2 big islands with 3x different fertilities will get u far and 2x ?

Yes you can do it but it will take some work. This is something to help start you out to complete the achievement.

You are going to need 14 fertilities
Spices, Dates, Goats milk, Clay, Quartz, Silk, Indigo, Coffee, Shell reef, Rose, SugarCane Almonds, Copper, & Gold
The other things you will need is Wood, Tools, Stone, Glass

1 Find your main island and make sure that the island has shell reef if you can.
2 The next island should have 3 different fertilities to your main island if you can. Plus if you don't shell reef on your main island try to get on this island.
3 You will have to buy seeds to plant on your two islands for fertilities.
4 Plus most islands have quartz on them.
5 Now don't forget about the copper and gold. The copper is not to bad because you can buy brass. Gold is going to be the hardest to get from the south islands. You 1st or 2nd island should have gold on one them too if you can too.

Now you can buy stuff from the Grand Vizier Al Zahir. This will help you plan on what you need later in the game.

Peasants
Dates Seeds

Citizen Level
Dates, Milk, & Silk.
Clay Seeds

Patrician
Spices, Quartz, & Mosaic
Coffee Seeds

Noblemen
Coffee Beans, Pearls, & Roses.
Sugar Cane Seeds

I went about this a different way, I decided that a large occidental town was better since it needs less resources, and I thought I could just about do it with one occidental island and one oriental island.

You only need to get one town to metropolis size, BTW, not both!

My worry was that there didn't seem to be enough space on the occidental island for a town of 3,500 noblemen and all the farms for the cider/clothes/bread/beer production.

Then I realised the key to having enough space was to put the occidental town on my oriental island (along with a small oriental town)!

I created new random maps a few times until I got two large islands, one occidental with cider, hemp and wheat, one oriental with dates, spice and indigo. Also I made sure that I had Iron, Brine, Furs, Coal, Stone, Quartz and Copper, and there were rivers on both islands.

I built a small oriental town of nomads only (30 houses - enough to get quartz mines), and built the occidental town up to somewhere near the right size (400+ houses) as peasants/citizens with only fish and cider, then once that was done I built cloth and chapels, allowed ascension, got herb seeds to plant on the occidental island and produced bread and beer. The indigo on the oriental island let me get books.

Remember that pigs (and cows) can be grown on oriental islands - this helps with space which otherwise is getting rather tight!

Once I'd got a maximum population of patricians, I allowed ascension to Noblemen. Meat, furs and glasses were straightforward, for wine and candlesticks I had to buy them in, remember to deny these until you have a reasonable stock (20 tons or so)then allow them which will make the noblemen happy for long enough for more to move in to reach 3,500 and win!

I'm working on the 'large numbers' achievements right now - 20,000 peasants, 15K citizens etc. It seems right now that the best approach is to get huge numbers of peasants in the place first, then allow then to ascend to the higher levels later. One island full of peasants already, another half full and I'm only up to 10K! This huge map is going to be full by the time I've finished!

wow, thanks for the insights, Ill try them out, thanks

I took Morf1961's advise on how to set up the island and it worked amazingly. I had no difficulties at all.

I should try that later ...

but i am still doing Imperatrix

Don't forget about the fact that you can program your trade ships to automaticaly buy items and deliver them either alone or in the middle of an existing trade route from your production islands.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PrestigeX,

I was looking at buying wine using a trade route, but when I tried to set up a trade route to buy from Lord Wass'name it only offered me the chance to buy the things he offered for sale if I visited him, and this didn't include wine.

If anybody has any idea how to change the things that are for sale or set a trading route to buy other things I'd love to know!

I found I had to set my own warehouse to buy wine and wait for the occident trading ships to visit me. Increasing the size of the trading fleet helped a bit.

NPC won't sell goods which they don't have.

and goods cannot be changed, only items can.

This acheivement isn't a problem at all. Remember, your first goal (if you decide to go with Occident) is to reach 3000 noblemen to open all the goods you need so you can buy them. The second is to reach at least 88 noblemen houses (3520 nobles max). After you get 88 houses you can even demolish patrician, citizen and peasant houses for them not to devastate your warehouse, or just disable them scarce resources.

For me I just had to buy wine and candlesticks (although I had everything but wax to produce them, NPC's won't sell you neither wax nor candles, I don't know why).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: what-man,

Because wax and candle are not the final product.
neither a raw material.